Stealing Online Banking Information

Financial Data Infographic

With the growth in popularity of online banking services, the theft of banking information has become one of the most common types of criminal activity on the Internet. In addition to stealing access codes for personal bank accounts – and corporate bank accounts – cybercriminals also steal the numbers of credit cards and other types of payment cards.

How banking information theft can impact you

Criminals use a number of techniques to gain access to banking information – and then steal funds:

Fake website windowsTrojan viruses can attack victims’ computers and display a dialogue window or image on each user’s computer. The window will mimic the appearance of the user’s bank’s website – and will ask the user to enter their username and password.

Spam and Phishing
Phishing emails may pretend to be from the victim’s bank – asking for confirmation of the victim’s username and password. To persuade the victim to enter their personal data, the emails often state that users that don’t enter the required information will have access to their account suspended.

Keylogger Trojans
These ‘keyboard spying’ programs will monitor activity on the victim’s computer and wait for the user to connect to an actual banking website. As soon as the user accesses a banking website – that is on the Trojan’s list of bank sites – the Trojan virus will start to capture the keystrokes that the user types on their keyboard. This enables the cybercriminal to steal data – including login, username and password – which then enables the criminal to access the user’s account… and transfer funds.

Protecting your online banking transactions

Kaspersky Lab offers world-class anti-malware solutions that protect against Trojan viruses, worms, computer viruses and other threats – and also deliver anti-phishing and anti-spam protection – so you can benefit from more secure online banking, via the following computer platforms: